The
Fagus grandifolia also known as
American Beech is a species of
beechBeech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 cm long and 4–10 cm broad...
native to eastern
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, from
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is a Canadian province located on Canada's southeastern coast. It is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. Its capital, Halifax, is a major economic centre of the region. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of...
west to
southernSouthern Ontario is the portion of the Canadian province of Ontario lying south of the French River and Algonquin Park. Depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts, its surface area would cover between 14-15% of the province. It is the southernmost region of Canada.Southern...
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
in southeastern
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, west to
WisconsinWisconsin is one of the fifty U.S. states. Located in the north-central United States, Wisconsin is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the...
and south to eastern
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
and northern
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Trees in the southern half of the range are sometimes distinguished as a variety,
F. grandifolia var.
caroliniana, but this is not considered distinct in the Flora of North America.
The
Fagus grandifolia also known as
American Beech is a species of
beechBeech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 cm long and 4–10 cm broad...
native to eastern
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, from
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is a Canadian province located on Canada's southeastern coast. It is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. Its capital, Halifax, is a major economic centre of the region. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of...
west to
southernSouthern Ontario is the portion of the Canadian province of Ontario lying south of the French River and Algonquin Park. Depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts, its surface area would cover between 14-15% of the province. It is the southernmost region of Canada.Southern...
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
in southeastern
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, west to
WisconsinWisconsin is one of the fifty U.S. states. Located in the north-central United States, Wisconsin is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the...
and south to eastern
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
and northern
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Trees in the southern half of the range are sometimes distinguished as a variety,
F. grandifolia var.
caroliniana, but this is not considered distinct in the Flora of North America. A related beech native to the mountains of central
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
is sometimes treated as a subspecies of American Beech, but more often as a distinct species,
Mexican BeechThe Mexican Beech or Haya is a species of beech endemic to northeastern Mexico, where it occurs from southwest Tamaulipas south to Hidalgo and Puebla; it is restricted to high altitude cloud forests in mountains. It is a deciduous tree, reaching heights of 25–40 m tall and up to 1 m trunk...
Fagus mexicana.
Description
It is a
deciduousDeciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing to tall, with smooth, silvery-gray
barkBark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are dark green, simple and sparsely-toothed with small teeth, long (rarely ), with a short
petiolePetiole may refer to:*Petiole , the stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem.*Petiole , the stem formed by a restricted abdominal segment which connects the thorax with the gaster in the suborder Apocrita....
. The winter twigs are distinctive among North American trees, being long and slender ( by ) with two rows of overlapping scales on the buds. The tree is
monoeciousPlant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, with flowers of both sexes on the same tree. The
fruitThe term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...
is a small, sharply-angled
nutNut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seeds or fruit of some plants. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and...
, borne in pairs in a soft-spined, four-lobed husk.
The American Beech is a shade-tolerant species, favoring the shade more than other trees, commonly found in forests in the final stage of
successionEcological succession, a fundamental concept in ecology, refers to the predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community. Succession may be initiated either by formation of new, unoccupied habitat or by some form of disturbance of an existing community...
. Although sometimes found in pure stands, it is more often associated with
Sugar MapleAcer saccharum is a species of maple native to the hardwood forests of northeastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to southern Ontario, and south to Georgia and Texas....
(forming the
Beech-Maple climax communityA beech-maple forest is a climax mesic closed canopy hardwood forest. It is primarily composed of American Beech and Sugar Maple trees which co-dominate the forest and which are the pinnacle of plant succession in their range...
),
Yellow BirchBetula alleghaniensis , is a species of birch native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Québec west to Minnesota, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia....
, and
Eastern HemlockTsuga canadensis, also known as Eastern or Canadian Hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as Pruche du Canada, is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It ranges from northeastern Minnesota eastward through southern Quebec to Nova Scotia, and south in the Appalachian...
, typically on moist well drained slopes and rich bottomlands. Near its southern limit, it often shares canopy dominance with Southern Magnolia.
Disease
Beech Bark DiseaseBeech bark disease is a disease that causes mortality and defects in beech trees in the eastern United States and Europe. In North America, the disease results when the beech scale insect, Cryptococcus fagisuga, attacks the bark, creating a wound. Later, two different fungi Beech bark disease is a...
has become a major killer of Beeches in the Northeastern United States.
Uses
American Beech is an important tree in
forestryForestry is the art and science of managing forests, tree plantations, and related natural resources. The main goal of forestry is to create and implement systems that allow forests to continue a sustainable continuation of environmental supplies and services...
. The wood is heavy, hard, tough and strong, and, until the advent of the modern
chainsawA chainsaw is a portable mechanical, motorized saw. It is used in logging activities such as felling, limbing, and bucking, by tree surgeons to fell trees and remove branches and foliage, to fell snags and assist in cutting firebreaks in wildland fire suppression, and to harvest firewood...
, during lumbering beech trees were often left uncut to grow. As a result, many areas today still have extensive groves of old beeches that would not otherwise occur. Today, the wood is harvested for uses such as flooring, containers, furniture, handles and woodenware.
Like the European Beech bark, the American Beech bark is an attraction for vandals who carve names, dates, and other material into it. One such tree in
Louisville, KentuckyLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
, in what is now the southern part of Iroquois Park, bore the legend "
D. BooneDaniel Boone [October 22 , 1734 – September 26, 1820] was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was...
kilt a
barBears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
" and the year in the late 1700s. This carving was authenticated as early as the mid-1800s, and the tree trunk section is now in the possession of
The Filson Historical SocietyThe Filson Historical Society is a historical society located in the Old Louisville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. The organization was founded in 1884 and named after early Kentucky explorer John Filson, who wrote The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, which included one...
in Louisville.
It is sometimes planted as an ornamental tree, but (even within its native area) much less often than the
European BeechThe European Beech or Common Beech is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae.-Natural range:The natural range extends from southern Sweden to central Italy, west to France, southern England, northern Portugal, and central Spain, and east to northwest Turkey, where it intergrades...
; the latter species is faster-growing and somewhat more tolerant of difficult
urbanAn urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
sites.
The
mastMast is the edible vegatative or reproductive part produced by woody species of plants, i.e. trees and shrubs, that wildlife species and some domestic animals consume. It comes in two forms.-Hard mast:...
(crop of nuts) from American Beech provides food for numerous species of animals. Among
vertebrateVertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with backbones or spinal columns. About 58,000 species of vertebrates have been described. Vertebrata is the largest subphylum of chordates, and contains many familiar groups of large land animals. Vertebrates comprise cyclostomes, bony...
s alone, these include ruffed grouse, wild turkeys, raccoons, red/gray foxes, white tail deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, pheasants, black bears, and porcupines. For
lepidopteraLepidoptera is an order of insects that includes moths and butterflies. It is one of the most speciose orders in the class Insecta, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
n
caterpillarCaterpillars are the larval form of a member of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly phytophagous in food habit, with some species being entomophagous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered pests in agriculture...
s feeding on American Beech, see List of Lepidoptera that feed on beeches. Beech nuts were one of the primary foods of the now-extinct
passenger pigeonThe passenger pigeon or wild pigeon was a species of pigeon that was once the most common bird in North America...
, and the clearing of beech and
oakAn oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 400 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
forests are pointed to as one of the major factors that may have contribute to the bird's extinction.